Just how fond was amply demonstrated when Brandon guided her into the front hallway. Mrs. Patrick, a seemingly placid woman of impressive girth and indeterminable age took one look at Brandon and launched herself at him like a young girl, bypassing Emma completely.
“My boy!” she cried, bursting into tears. “You’re back! I was that worried about you. You would never have gotten into all that trouble if I’d been here, I know you wouldn’t, and I could have cursed my sister for getting sick at just that time, or I could have saved you.”
He smiled down at the old woman with real affection. “I was heading for hell any way you looked at it, and even your tender mercies couldn’t have stopped me. And how is your dear sister?”
“Dead,” said Mrs. Patrick with no particular regret. “Just like her, too, stirring things up and then popping off. I’d never been so annoyed.”
Emma felt her eyebrows rise at this, but Brandon seemed well versed in Mrs. Patrick’s attitude toward life. He detached her gently. “I’ve brought Mrs. Cadbury. We’ll be staying for a few days.”
Mrs. Patrick finally recalled her duties. “Mrs. Cadbury, a pleasure to see you as always.”
“Put her in her usual room, would you?” Brandon said.
Emma tensed.
Mrs. Patrick cast him a quizzical glance. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t,” she said. “Mrs. Cadbury always prefers to use your room.”
He glanced down at her, hopefully unable to read her blank expression. “Does she really? Well, then, continue to indulge her, and put me anywhere you please.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Emma broke in. “Of course you must take your own room. It merely seemed convenient during the times I stayed here. I didn’t even realize it was yours,” she added hastily, praying Mrs. Patrick would keep her mouth shut.
That hope was in vain. “Oh, no, Mrs. Cadbury! You’ve forgotten, but I told you all about Mr. Brandon since you two had never met.”
A little of Emma’s anxiety left her. At least Mrs. Patrick had been nowhere around during that long, terrible night when she’d found Brandon hanging from a rope in that room and managed to save him.
She’d spent most of that night holding him in her arms, dry eyed, mourning, hurting so much inside she thought the pain would devour her. “Really?” she said vaguely. “It must not have made much impression.” She refused to meet his gaze. He would know very well that she would have paid close attention to any information about him, even if he’d been only one of her random patients, but she refused to think about it. He hadn’t brought up the subject of their earlier acquaintance, though he’d made it clear he knew about it, and she had no intention of doing so either. “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Patrick, could I perhaps have something on the third floor? I like my privacy.”
“She takes my room,” Brandon said, and Emma knew it would be a waste of breath arguing. “I’ll use the blue room.”
She jerked her head to look at him as an obedient Mrs. Patrick scurried off. “That’s next door. No.”
She couldn’t read his faint smile—was it derision, contempt, or actual amusement? “I’m not about to creep into your bed in the middle of the night, Emma, so you may rest easy. I just happen to know you’ll take the first chance you get to run off back to that viper’s nest you’ve been living in, and I don’t fancy retrieving you time and again. If you try to run away I will tie you to the be
d. Yours or mine is still up for discussion.”
She froze. “I thought you weren’t interested in those sorts of variations.”
He moved in on her unexpectedly, crowding her, but she stood her ground. He put a hand under her stubborn chin, tilting it up toward him, and said, “You, of all people should know there’s a difference between the enjoyment of pain and the more delicious possibilities of measured restraint. Then again, your practical knowledge of fuckery is surprisingly scant. You didn’t even know how to kiss.”
There was no reason she should feel shame at the criticism. “Men do not kiss whores, my lord.”
“I do.”
The words left her still, breathless for a long, silent moment, and then she came to her senses.
“Taken from a business point of view, I must tell you that whores do not like or expect kisses. They want to get things done quickly and efficiently before they move on to the next one.”
“Do they really?” He sounded amused, and she had to give him that. If any of the women she knew had been servicing Brandon Rohan they probably wouldn’t be in any kind of hurry. Even she wouldn’t.
“Well,” he continued, “taken from my point of view I must tell you that you’re dead wrong. Women like to be kissed, no matter what the financial arrangements are, and I kiss very well.”
She had to give him that as well. That man could seduce a nun with his mouth. He came absurdly close to seducing her.
“I find this conversation distasteful,” she said, turning her back on him and starting up the stairs. She should have known he’d immediately be by her side. In fact, distasteful was not the word for talking about kissing with Brandon Rohan. Disturbing might be more accurate.
He followed her up the staircase, down the long hall without a word, and her skin prickled at his nearness. His room was at the end of the hall, and she stopped outside the door.
“Do you want me to carry you across the threshold?” he inquired politely.